Last year my fire department purchased a new tower ladder for more than $800,000. It's a gorgeous truck, and the public is well served by its purchase. In the course of its lifetime, if we use this apparatus just once to save a life, it would be worth 10 times every penny we paid for it. Every week, whether we use it or not, we wash this truck to keep it in top condition. As we walk into the fire station on Monday nights to go over the apparatus and its equipment, we go right past the racks containing our turnout gear-the gear that protects us from burns and other high-heat situations.
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